The invention relates to a mat of a liquid-tight, flexible material for the collection of deicing fluid during deicing of an aircraft rolled onto the mat, where the mat comprises at least one discharge opening.
The disclosure of WO 79/00331 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,533,395 deals with systems for deicing aircrafts, which are parked on an area covered with fluid-impermeable concrete or asphalt. The last mentioned system includes a series of dams around the area for trapping the sprayed deicing fluid. According to WO 79/00331 the deicing fluid is drained off through wells and subsurface pipelines, and according to U.S. Pat. No. 3,533,395 through a trench along a part of the perimeter dams.
Said systems suffer from the inconvenience that they cannot be moved to another site, and that an occurring leakage in the concrete or asphaltic covering is very troublesome to repair and that they necessitate a long establishing phase requiring the strip to be closed.
DE 3,834,537 relates to a device of the above mentioned type for use in connection with car washing. The device has the form of a tub with upright detachable or inflatable side walls for salvaging the washwater. Upon driving-in and driving-out the side wall is either removed or it is being run over. Such side walls retaining the fluid are unsuitable when the tub is so large that the operating crew is required to stand on the bottom of the tub when in use, firstly, because a puddle forms on the bottom and, secondly, because the free passage is impeded by the side walls. Moreover, a tub bottom of said material has a tendency to bulge directly downstream of the wheels of a craft rolling in onto the tub bottom. This bulging impedes the free movement of the wheels and it further causes strong, local deformations to occur in the mat material of the tub bottom, resulting in a fast deterioration thereof.